Ukraine – Lottery war: who will get billions of gambling Ukrainians

The lottery market is preparing for change. At least there is one irrefutable fact, which indicates this: in 2018, the state wants to receive 1.9 billion UAH of income from lottery activity. This is evidenced by a new line in the budget for 2018.

To do this, however, it is necessary, in the near future, to approve the licensing requirements for lotteries, which can not be approved by the government for seven months.

However, some market participants are convinced that in the present form the Cabinet’s draft transfers the market to the deputies from the “Petro Poroshenko Bloc” and state-owned banks. Is it so?

What can happen to the lottery business, who is behind him, and here the deputies from the presidential party, found out the EP.

Fly to Mars or legalize lotteries

The intention to change the rules in the lottery market has always been in tune with attempts to deregulate the gambling market, which is known to have been banned in 2009.

The debate on the legalization of gambling business is not the first year. Parliament has registered many parliamentary and government bills, but none of them has been approved.

The theme of lotteries has always been “bracketed” for several reasons. The first is a strong political “lottery” lobby at the parliamentary level. Second, the law on the prohibition of gambling does not include gambling and organizing lotteries.

In the legislative initiatives on the legalization of gambling, the issue was about changing the rules for all: bookmakers, casinos, and lotteries. The reason – under the lottery mask gambling. Many so-called lotteries are in fact gambling establishments. They often offer sports betting, gaming machines and lotteries.

Vladimir Groisman’s Cabinet sees everyone in the same basket.

In May 2016, the government registered a draft law on the shuffling of the gambling market, which ranked the lottery as gambling and updated the regulation of all three types of gambling industry. This bill was also “suspended” in parliament.

Who is who

There are three major players in the lottery market.

Patriot Ltd. was established in 1997 on the basis of the Soviet lottery operator of the Voluntary Partnership for the Promotion of the Army, Aviation and Navy – DTSAAF. Instant lotteries “Patriot” have bright names: “Kozyrna”, “Fair Play”, “Azart”, “Fart”.

100% of the “Patriot” shares belong to the Cypriot Cehriba Investments Limited. This company was part of the investment firm Finstar Russian billionaire Oleg Boyko.

In September 2015, the owner changed. After the introduction of sanctions against Patriot through the company’s communications with the Russian Federation, Boyko replaced a Ukrainian banker, a former chairman of the board of Oschadbank Oleksandr Morozov.

“The previous shareholder signed an agreement to sell 100% of the parent company” Patriot “, which owns almost 100% of the company’s shares,” – said the company.

Now Morozov assures that he is the sole ultimate owner of almost 100% stake in the lottery operator.

In general, “Patriot” is not the best time now – the company is inactive and sells only instant lotteries.

Another player – LLC “MSL” – was founded on the basis of the state corporation “Molodserlotto” in 1998. Among the popular lotteries of the operator are “Loto-zabava”, “Express-lotto”, “Sportprognoz”, “Who is there”.

“MSL” supervised by General Director Georgiy Lozhenko and his business partner, the Cypriot Marcos Shipanis. Earlier, “Ukrainska Pravda” wrote that Lozhenko is one of the most influential people in the industry. It seems that he lobbied the interests of all three lottery operators in all governments since the late 1990s.

According to one of the interlocutors in the market and sources close to “MSL”, Vitaliy Khomutinnik, a member of the People’s Deputy, chairman of the Renaissance group, has a non-public share. The test of deputy Viktor Sopelnik was previously vice-president of “MSL”.

According to the register, the largest share in the statutory fund “MSL” owned by the Evolot limited Cyprus company, the ultimate beneficiary of which is Shipanis. The latter started its business in Russia, in Soviet times. UP also wrote that most directors of Evolot Limited are affiliated with Russian Alfa Group and one of its founders Andriy Kosogov.

In addition, small “honorary” shares (less than 1% – EP) have two Ukrainians: vice president of “MSL” Ivan Zalizniak and president of the law firm Jurimex Daniel Hetmantsev.

The third player, the market leader, is UNL, with a registered capital of UAH 268 million. Among the famous lotteries is “Super Loto”, “Keno”, “Lotto Troika”. The company controls Cyprus Efamiando Holdings, established December 30, 2015.

The owner of “UNL” in 2016 became Ukrainian Roman Zenio, having acquired Efamiando Holdings. By this time the company had foreign owners.

Earlier, journalists from the Our Money program found out that Zenio had previously worked as a cycling coach of the Ternopil Oblast Children and Youth Sport School and never had business.

At Zenio, a lottery company was recorded after SBU representatives searched the UNL office. The official reason is illegal exchange offices……

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